Re: Grammar
and pickiness

: :
: : Hello,
: : : : I know this forum is used to ask questions related to idiom.
But I do trust you about any interpretations of English grammar. I had post the
following questions in different grammar forums but I got totally different answers.
I was quite puzzled by it, and wondering if you could help me out. Here're the
questions:
: : : : 1.Which is grammatically correct and natural?
: : :
: (a) I heard he said you won't come to my party next week.
: : : : (b) I
heard from him that you won't come to my party next week.
: : : : (c) I heard
from him that you wouldn't come to my party next week.
: : : : (d) I heard
it from him that you won't come to my party next week.
: : : : (e) I heard
it from him that you wouldn't come to my party next week.
: : : : 2. If some
of them are correct, do they share the same meaning?
: : : : One answered
that (a) is the most natural and (d) and (e) are incorrect. The other answered
that (a) is incorrect and the rest(b,c,d,e) are correct.
: : : : Thank you
very much for your help.

: : : a, b, and c are correct. d and e are incorrect.

:
: : a means SOMEBODY ELSE (not he) reported to me that he said you will not come.

:
: : b means HE HIMSELF told me you will not come.

: : : c means the same thing
as b. There may be a difference: a speaker might use c to mean you will actively
refuse to come to my party and b to mean you simply won't be there, for whatever
reason, perhaps a reason outside your control. But speakers who choose b or c
do not necessarily have that difference in mind.

: : ~~~~~~
: : I agree
100% with R Berg

: Beautifully put by Ms Berg as ever. The two constructions
"I heard (that) he said (that)..." as used in Example A, and "I heard from him
that..." as used in Examples B and C, do differ in meaning exactly as described.
Both constructions are dealing with something that a crusty grammar book would
call "Reported Speech".

: However, although all three examples are perfectly
acceptable these days, I have a dim and distant memory that the rule used to be
that, if one is dealing with reporting speech where the statement being reported
was in the Future tense (will not/won't), then one should strictly speaking choose
the Conditional tense (would not/wouldn't) to report it. Don't get me wrong here
- Examples A and B are both legitimate and intelligible - but I can't help thinking
that Example C is the "most correct".

: I think the issue's confusing because
of two things. Firstly, your examples quite properly use elided negatives (won't/wouldn't),
which help to muddy the waters, and also your examples again quite properly are
set out as statements in the 1st person singular, a thing which makes them seem
like dialogue in their own right, and then giving the problem of dealing with
Reported Speech embedded within Actual Speech.

: To try to make this easier
to understand, here's an example that I hope removes those confusions.

: Let's
suppose that what Bill actually said to Fred was this: "John will resign next
week."

: If I'm then to describe Fred's conversation with Bill in writing, my
options are:-

: a) Fred heard from Bill that John will resign next week.

:
b) Fred heard from Bill that John would resign next week.

: To me, b) is clearly
the correct choice.

: Any other opinions here, because I might quite possibly
be talking drivel. Plus, if I'm being overly picky, I'll attempt to excuse myself
on the grounds that I spent too many years being taught languages in the old-fashioned
way, where you were compelled to focus on what people ought to do, rather than
what they quite happily did. Other linguists of a certain age would sympathise.

I believe
my age is more certain than Fallen's but my formal education was inferior. Here's
what I think about the Fred/Bill/John examples (slightly revised for simplicity):

c.
Bill told Fred that John will resign next week.

d. Bill told Fred that John
would resign next week.

d is slightly more correct in an academic sense than
c, but a complication is whether Bill's statement was true, along with other features
of the context. If John had no intention of resigning and Bill was spreading vicious
gossip, then d, to my mind, is clearly the better choice. But consider this dialogue:

MARY:
Fred, did you hear about John?
FRED: I heard something from Bill.
MARY:
What did Bill say?
FRED: Bill said that John will resign next week if the committee
doesn't meet his demands.

"Would resign . . . if the committee didn't meet"
is acceptable, but I don't see that it's any better.